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After dinner with the Kurdish family with whom we are staying, we sit down in front of the TV. The host flicks through the many Turkish channels. Most show the same heated discussions. The so-called experts on screen are all obsessed with one subject today: Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurds and Rojava.

After years of censorship, discussions of such topics are new and surprising. For some time now, the once-polyphonic Turkish media landscape has been almost completely under the control of the government and associated businessmen. Turkey ranked 165th out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ 2023 press freedom . Yet the news agenda can sometimes change suddenly. If the authorities wish, the Turkish media can turn an elephant into an ant — or vice versa.

Devlet Bahçeli, from the  — a fascistic ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — surprisingly proposed in late October that Öcalan, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, be released on parole if he “renounces violence and disbands the PKK”. Erdoğan followed up by stating that Turkey must solve problems instead of ignoring them.

Ömer Öcalan, Abdullah Öcalan’s nephew (who is also a member of parliament for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, ), was able to see him on the Turkish prison island of Imrali, on October 23, as part of a “family visit”. This marked an end to 43 months of isolation, during which time no sign that Öcalan was alive had reached the outside world. Öcalan’s message was short and clear: “The isolation continues. When the conditions arise, I have the theoretical and practical strength to steer this process from the basis of conflict and violence to a legal and political basis.” The Kurdish freedom movement publicly declared its support for this approach.

Sirri Süreyya Önder and Pervin Buldan, both MPs for DEM in Turkish parliament, were allowed to visit Öcalan at İmralı, on December 28. He conveyed his via the legislators. It said: For the success of the process, it is essential that all political circles in Turkey take the initiative, act constructively and make positive contributions without getting caught up in a narrow-minded and cyclical calculation. One of the most important places for this is Turkey’s parliament.

In the aftermath of this meeting, a three-member delegation of DEM politicians held preliminary talks with the parties in the Turkish parliament about a possible dialogue process to resolve the Kurdish question. They expressed confidence about the results of these talks. The meetings took a positive and optimistic approach — albeit warning that the government should not approach such a process with a view to its own self-interest.

The two MPs had the chance to meet Öcalan for a second time on January 22. The next day, the DEM politicians released a brief in which they stated that Öcalan’s participation in the process will continue. This hoped-for peace process, they said, is meant to “enable all of us to live a common and free life”.

Öcalan must be freed

Öcalan again plays a decisive role for a political solution, peace and the democratisation of Turkey and Kurdistan. Yet such facilitation is clearly difficult given Öcalan’s permanent isolation — making the demand for his release a priority.

Öcalan has been in solitary confinement since his abduction from Kenya as part of an international conspiracy on February 15, 1999, carried out by countries including the United States, Israel, Greece, Kenya and Turkey. Millions of Kurds, who fled across the globe due to the war in Kurdistan, furiously at the time, even US secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

The forces behind the plot were convinced that they had a simple answer to complicated questions. But in the Middle East, Kurdistan and Syria, these conflicts are intertwined. Conversations about human rights, international law and democracy cloak battles over the plundering of the region’s resources.

Before his abduction, Öcalan had traveled to Rome, where he expressed his willingness to find a democratic and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question. He wanted Europe to contribute to this solution. But Europe refused. Previously, Öcalan had been forced to leave Syria due to threats from NATO and Turkey.

Having taken up the struggle in 1984 in response to the discrimination and exclusion suffered in Turkey, Kurds are justifiably insecure about what future legal framework may await them. A comprehensive democratisation, enshrining fundamental rights in the constitution, could allow for peaceful coexistence. Yet the Erdoğan government and its predecessors have insisted that violence against Kurds will continue until they give up their struggle, while granting no guarantees as to their future rights.

For 25 years, Turkey has shown no serious interest in dialogue. In 2015, Erdoğan again threw the so-called peace process overboard, unleashing violence and war both at home and abroad.

Ankara in Syria

Importantly, this conflict is not limited within the Turkish state’s own borders. During the Arab Spring in 2011, there was a broad uprising in Syria against Bashar al-Assad’s regime. At the beginning of the conflict, Assad’s army (supported by Russia and Iran) was at war with the Free Syrian Army (FSA), supplied by countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States. Turkey became the retreat and command centre of the FSA and other Islamist groups.

The uprising soon produced a proxy war that had little to do with the interests of the people in Syria and much to do with the political and economic calculations of other parties to the conflict. Only in northern Syria did a “democratic autonomy” develop in the Kurdish regions (Cizîrê, Kobanê, and Afrîn), which became known as Rojava (officially: the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, ). A multiethnic and multireligious local self-government was established there, whose theoretical framework is based on Öcalan’s grassroots democratic paradigm.

In line with its anti-Kurdish agenda, Turkey chose Rojava as its main target. In summer 2014, when the Islamic State (IS) intensified its genocidal attacks in northern Iraq and northern Syria, including against the Kurdish population (with the genocide of the Yezidis), massive global public pressure forced international powers to act. The United States and its allies, including some Arab states, launched the anti-IS coalition. At this time, Kobanê was already under attack by IS — and Erdoğan longed for the city’s fall. Meanwhile, the YPG/YPJ People’s and Women’s Defense Units, with the support of the PKK guerrillas, put up a historic resistance that went down in history as the “.”

As a result, the United States launched air strikes for the first time. Kobanê was liberated at the end of January 2015. The fight against IS was continued by the YPG/YPJ with the support of the anti-IS alliance. IS lost its last territory in March 2019 and was thus considered defeated militarily.

Turkey campaigned early on for Assad’s overthrow and backed the various Islamist groups politically, logistically and strategically, from the FSA (today SNA) and IS to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, which recently took power in Syria. In cooperation with these groups, Turkey occupied the first parts of northern Syria in 2016, including Jarabulus. Some of these areas were handed over directly to Turkey by IS. This was later followed by the invasions of Afrîn in 2018 and Girê Spî (Tal Abyad) and Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ain) in 2019. The aim was to weaken the self-administration of northern and eastern Syria and, if possible, to smash it.

To this end, Turkey paradoxically participated in the anti-IS coalition while attacking the DAANES together with Islamist and jihadist groups. For example, Turkey actively supported IS during the siege of Kobanê by supplying weapons and providing infrastructure for injured IS terrorists. The SNA emerged from the FSA, whose alleged main goal was to overthrow the Assad regime. This ostensible mission was accomplished two months ago, but thousands of pro-Turkish SNA mercenaries are still fighting on behalf of their Turkish client against the self-governing regions in northern and eastern Syria. In addition, Turkey is constantly threatening a new ground invasion in the region.

Talk of peace, reality of war

This highlights an obvious contradiction. There is talk of a possible “solution” to the Kurdish question, yet at the same time Ankara is escalating an approach built on war, occupation, and systematic repression. Since the last local elections in 2023, nine democratically elected Kurdish mayors, including in Merdîn, Colemêrg (Turkish: Hakkari), Elih (Batman) and Dêrsim, have been removed from office and replaced by state administrators. Since 2016, a total of 157 municipal administrations in the Kurdish provinces have been seized by state administrators. Protests against this were brutally suppressed and hundreds of people were arrested, most of them receiving long prison sentences. More than ten thousand political prisoners, including former MPs, mayors, journalists and political activists, are in Turkish prisons today.

Politicians, academics and experts who do not recognise the fundamental rights of the Kurdish people are now dominating the “democratic” debates in the Turkish media. The prevalent discourse is characterised by paranoia and the constructed scenario that granting basic rights to the Kurds will lead to a division of the country. Even in parliament, pro-war and antidemocratic figures are debating the Kurdish issue. So there is a risk that this apparent opening will remain nothing more than empty political chatter. If Turkey were really ready, the solution would be simple: talk openly and directly with Öcalan and representatives of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement instead of just talking about them.

Öcalan recently declared his readiness for a peace process — under appropriate conditions. His freedom is an absolute necessity and would be a historic step. In a worldwide at the beginning of 2015, not only millions of Kurds but about 10.3 million signatories called for the release of Öcalan and all other political prisoners in Turkey.

Öcalan remains key to a general peace and resolution process. He already presented a comprehensive peace plan in 2009 with his “”. It formulates concrete proposals and steps that both warring parties would have to take. Central to a peace process for the Kurdish side is the constitutional recognition of Kurdish society and with it, for example, the right to education in its mother tongue, a decentralisation of political structures and the abolition of forced administration in North Kurdistan. The democratic and peaceful solution to the Kurdish question is conceived in the context of a general democratisation of Turkey, which includes the demand for legal and constitutional reforms to protect the cultural and identity-related rights of all citizens.

It is still unclear whether the new attempt at dialogue will develop into a peace process. This also has to do with social pressure. Erdoğan’s call for Kurdish “capitulation”, and the threat of further violence and massacres, show that he is pursuing a completely different calculation. At a party conference in the province of Rize on January 5, the Turkish president , “Together we have a unique opportunity to make history. Without risk, you cannot succeed in any area of life, not even in politics.” What kind of risk he is referring to is unclear, though such dangers are bound to continue unless the paths of peace are found.

The sincerity of the Turkish state is once again up for debate: Is this an attempt to start serious talks, or are Erdoğan and Bahçeli using dialogue as nothing more than a tactical manoeuvre? What is certain is that Turkey ought not to delay a peaceful, democratic and dignified solution. Unfortunately, this is exactly what has been happening since 1993. The paranoid, delusional state of various Turkish regimes with regard to the Kurdish question is closely linked to the anti-Kurdish doctrine on which the state was founded.

Öcalan’s message of December 28 ended with the words: “It is time for an era of peace, democracy, and fraternity for Turkey and the region.” He is still the most important political representative of the Kurds, not only in Turkey but also in Syria, Iran and Iraq. He alone seems to be offering a serious solution beyond war, capitalism, state repression, environmental destruction and patriarchal structures. The way forward depends on others making themselves available for a peace process too.

[The article was originally published in and is reprinted with permission of the author. Devriş Çimen is a Kurdish journalist and politician.]